Chapter 10
Briar
It was raining, again. The sky was an angry grey, spewing the kind of rain that fell in all directions, soaking anyone who ventured out into its downpour.
The forecast for the next few days didn’t leave much hope for the end of the session, and the campers were once again playing board games in the mess hall.
Briar sighed for what felt like the hundredth time that morning, catching Freddie’s eye as he strolled by.
‘Up for another round of bingo?’ she asked, and he shuddered.
‘Absolutely not,’ he said. ‘That should only be used as a last resort.’
Briar nodded. ‘Then what? We can’t keep them inside all day without an activity.’
Freddie shrugged. ‘Musical chairs?’
‘We played that two days ago.’
‘Dodgeball?’
‘Did it.’
‘Bowling?’
‘With what pins?’
‘Movie?’
‘It’s a VHS system and we only have Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. It’ll give them nightmares.’
‘Quiet reading time?’ Briar glared at him, and Freddie threw his arms up. ‘It’s never rained this much in one session. I’m tapped out.’
Briar groaned, letting her head fall onto the table in front of her.
Once upon a time, she’d been the fun counselor, the one coming up with games and entertaining the campers with wild stories.
She had connected with her kids, known all their favorite colors, what animals they liked, made friendship bracelets for them.
As a co-director, she didn’t even get that.
She was either stuck in the office with Alice breathing down her neck or disciplining rowdy kids.
Or, even worse, she was at her mom’s house, going through the painstaking process of fixing it up.
She wasn’t sure she felt the same pull she once had to this place. It would always be her mother’s camp, and maybe that was the problem. Briar hated that she kept failing her. It was what she’d been feeling every day of the session. Failure after failure. She wasn’t sure she could take any more.
As she scanned the room hoping for a miracle activity to appear, her eyes caught on Robin and Timothy in the corner working on a puzzle.
Briar watched as Timothy helped his younger brother find the right pieces, presenting options for Robin to try until they found the piece that fit.
Each time it worked, Robin’s eyes would light up, a satisfied smile appearing on his face. It made Briar miss the twins.
She knew she owed them a call, but she was avoiding her dad.
She didn’t want to think about selling the camp yet, but she also knew she had to.
It was what was right for her family, and this session had certainly proved that she couldn’t run it on her own.
Even with Alice’s help, it had gone completely to shit.
‘Er, Briar?’
She turned to see Cook looking even more haggard than usual.
‘What’s up?’
‘Ye’d better come look,’ Cook said.
She followed him back to the kitchen, where he gestured to a wall with a finality that suggested it perfectly explained his mood. Briar looked at it, and then back at him, not understanding.
Cook sighed. ‘There’s a hole.’
‘What?’ Briar said, inspecting the wall more closely and finding a small hole near the baseboard, hidden by shadow. ‘Jesus, where does this go?’
‘To the crawl space,’ Cook said, drawing in a deep breath, ‘where the racoons are living.’
‘Raccoons?’ Briar tried to keep the panic out of her voice. Like spiders, small mammals with creepy little fingers were a definite phobia.
Cook nodded grimly, opening the pantry door. ‘They got into me buns. Hotdogs and hamburgers, even the brioche.’
Briar suppressed the childish impulse to laugh as she surveyed the damage. There were fluffy crumbs and half-eaten buns scattered all over. Just one more thing to add to the never-ending list of problems.
‘Hmm,’ she said unhelpfully. ‘I guess we’re not grilling tonight.’
Cook leveled her with a look that would’ve terrified her younger self.
‘I’ll just go out for more bread,’ she said quickly.
‘And some caulk,’ Cook said. Briar blinked at him. ‘For the hole.’
‘Right,’ Briar said, tamping down a hysterical giggle. ‘That too. Be back in a jiffy.’
Nearly two hours later, Briar pulled back into the parking lot, her trunk filled with every bread roll available within county lines and one tube of caulk. She hopped out of the car, loading her arms in an attempt to carry everything in one trip.
‘Where were you?’ Alice materialized beside her, grabbing the remaining grocery bags and closing the trunk. Briar looked at the bags and then back at Alice.
‘Give you one guess.’
‘You didn’t tell anyone you were leaving,’ Alice said, and Briar noticed that she looked frantic, her hair disheveled and eyes wild. ‘We went looking.’
‘I told Cook,’ Briar said, starting down the path to the mess hall.
She could practically hear Alice roll her eyes. ‘Someone reliable.’
‘Did you need something?’ Briar asked, attempting to wedge her foot into the gap of the open kitchen door. ‘I’m busy.’
‘Yes, actually,’ Alice said, grabbing the handle and yanking the door open. ‘Cabin 5 has lice.’
‘Gross.’ The modicum of peace Briar had found away from camp slipped away. ‘Keep them quarantined and get a nurse.’
‘We don’t have a nurse,’ Alice said, dropping her bags on the counter and crossing her arms. ‘As the only one with more than basic first aid training, you’re our nurse, i.e., you should’ve been here.’
She let it slide that Alice had just said the phrase i.e. out loud in regular conversation. The look on her face told Briar that Alice would snap if she was outright mocked.
‘I was busy,’ Briar said again, through gritted teeth. ‘Just back off, yeah?’
‘Fine.’ Alice’s mouth pulled into a frown, the way it always would in school when she had wanted to argue with the teacher but had known it wasn’t worth it.
‘Good.’ Briar pushed a bag towards her. ‘Give this to Freddie on your way out, would you? I found an old video store in town, got them on clearance.’
Alice grabbed the bag on her way out of the room. Briar unloaded the groceries, shoving packages of rolls onto shelves haphazardly.
‘Watch it,’ Cook called out from behind her. Briar hadn’t even noticed him; all her focus had been on Alice. ‘Gentle with the buns.’
Briar was too irritated to smile. ‘What do I do with this caulk?’
‘Here, let me.’ Cook took the tube from her and crouched by the hole. ‘It’d be better if we had a new wood plank, but this’ll hold until we get the wee buggers out of our hairs.’
‘Are you talking about the kids or the racoons?’ Briar joked, the familiar lilt of Cook’s accent soothing her. She bent down next to him, watching as he expertly filled in the gap.
She remembered when she was younger, still too young to be a camper, and her mom would leave her in the kitchen with Cook for the day. She remembered watching his hands as he’d cut up vegetables.
It was the same now, only his hands were older, more worn, and when they moved there was a slight tremor.
She knew she needed to tell him about selling the camp.
This was his home as much as hers, maybe even more so.
But telling him seemed impossible. The whole domain he and her mother had built together was going to be gone, just like Susan.
Maybe Cook could sense that she was on the brink of a breakdown, because he started talking again.
‘Ye know, yer mum’s first summer was pretty shite too. There was these nasty little bugs, cicadas, fecking everywhere. We had to put up nets over beds, in the doorways. I considered dressing in a fecking beekeeper getup to keep them out me mouth.’
Briar laughed, remembering her mom telling her the same story. In her version, she had woken up to tiny bug legs in her bed for months, which Briar believed was the cause of her own aversion to anything of the creepy-crawly variety.
‘The worst, though, was at the end of the summer, all them cicadas had procreated themselves to death, and their corpses were everywhere. Ye couldnae step outside without crunching them.’ Cook shuddered at the memory and Briar grinned, leaning into him and resting her head on his shoulder.
‘Thank you,’ she said. He patted her shoulder.
‘Dinnae mention it. Got a reputation to uphold,’ Cook said, winking. Then he grew serious. ‘I had been meaning to talk to ye.’
Briar braced for the worst, her good mood dissipating instantly. ‘What’s up?’
‘Well, as ye’ve probably noticed, I’m getting on in years,’ he said, gesturing to his wrinkled face.
‘I’d been telling yer mum I was too old to keep up with these kids.
But the stubborn woman wouldnae let me retire.
’ He paused, misty-eyed. ‘I think this will be my last summer. I’ve got a fair bit saved up and am planning to live out me dreams of sitting on a porch and smoking to my heart’s content. ’
‘I’m gonna miss you,’ she said, even as she was overcome with relief. Selling the camp wouldn’t mean kicking Cook out of his home. So she didn’t need to tell him – not yet.
‘You cannae get rid of me that easily,’ Cook said. ‘I’ll expect ye to visit.’